I haven't gotten an explanation for how Republicans justify trying to eliminate collective bargaining, one of the keystones of workers' rights (that thousands fought and died for). The only thing I can think of is that they hate unions, and union members. So the hate is coming right back at 'em.

Seriously, what did they expect would happen? They should really address freedom of assembly next, as it seems to be causing problems for them.

You have to feel a little sorry for the once privileged Educators. They have loyally hitched their economic wagon to the Democrats, and now the wheels have come off for them. An old political saying around here is that "He who lives by the Government's promises, dies by the Governments promises." Apparently Obama's Bullet train to State Bankruptcy has left the station.

My understanding is that school was canceled because the teachers called in sick -- it is indirectly because of the protests, yes, but I'm pretty sure "you canceled class because we didn't show up, so you can't blame us for not showing up for class" is not a valid excuse.

Sofa King: So, for you, collective bargaining gives public sector unions an unduly large influence on the government; it's undemocratic.

However, allowing corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts of money in electoral campaigns is... free speech? Is that right?

This is why I'm on the left. The left freaks out about going to war. The right freaks out about health care for the poor. The left defends teachers and firemen. The right defends CEOs and wall street. Simplistic, yet basically true.

Lunatic Fringe I know you're out there You're in hiding And you hold your meetings We can hear you coming We know what you're after We're wise to you this time We won't let you kill the laughter

Lunatic Fringe In the twilight's last gleaming This is open season But you won't get too far We know you've got to blame someone For your own confusion But we're on guard this time Against your final solution

We can hear you coming No you're not going to win this time We can hear the footsteps Way out along the walkway Lunatic Fringe We know you're out there But in these new dark ages There will still be light

An eye for an eye Well, before you go under Can you feel the resistance Can you feel the....thunder

AJ & Rev, I'd love to think the teachers would face some financial and or disciplinary action, but don't think for a minute that Madison's $400,000-a-year school Superintendent is going to hold his workers to their contracted performance.

At least the spelling for most of the signage is correct. The times I have had teachers picket my home, BOE meetings, etc or mail letters, it is not unusual to see spelling errors.

A note that teachers in Wisconsin don't get it. Just like the teachers in our district don't get it. There's been no contract with teachers for over 4 1/2 years. I'm hoping it does not go to five. Our board of education is firm that in order to do the right thing for taxpayers and students, it is vital to get some better management of health care costs and the like. You would think we were asking to pluck out the eyes of teachers.

I've encouraged teachers to go public with how they are being wronged. If what they say is correct, the public would surely be outraged by how our board of education is acting. Instead, we have teachers coming up to us and saying that the union is controlled by "hotheads". Not much we can do, but it's nice when teachers pass that information along.

In Wisconsin, this too shall pass. And in a strange way, i do miss teachers standing along the road shouting slogans toward my house.

Sofa King: So, for you, collective bargaining gives public sector unions an unduly large influence on the government; it's undemocratic.

However, allowing corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts of money in electoral campaigns is... free speech? Is that right?

First of all, "corporations" *includes* unions. Guess what, I favor the right of corporations - including unions - to speak freely and oppose the right of all corporations - including unions - to collectively bargain with the government!

But why are you dragging in an unrelated issue? Why don't you explain why you think that "speaking" and "collective bargaining" are basically equivalent? I don't, I take the sensible position that they are two different things with different justifications and different outcomes, and I consistently believe that corporations and unions should have *identical* rights and privileges.

To answer your question, both unions and corporations have a right to free speech based on the First Amendment. So the standard is, is there a *compelling* reason to limit speech, and if so, has it been limited in the *least possible* way? Clearly not the case in Citizens United.

On the other hand, there is no constitutional right to collective bargaining with the government. Therefore a different standard applies: is it in the public interest or not. I think all evidence shows it is not. It benefits the few at the expense of the many.

This is why I am not on the left. They have no principles except expediency.

Yeah, AJ, it seems a little steep. As do the $100,000+ packages of more than 80 other administrators in the district.

Just to be clear, I really wouldn't second-guess those individual Madison district salaries if they were approved locally and paid for locally. But with 2/3 of district costs being paid by state shared revenue, I'm on the hook for what seems like obscene over-employment and overpayment all across the state.

On the passage in either house of the legislature of any law which imposes, continues or renews a tax, or creates a debt or charge, or makes, continues or renews an appropriation of public or trust money, or releases, discharges or commutes a claim or demand of the state, the question shall be taken by yeas and nays, which shall be duly entered on the journal; and three−fifths of all the members elected to such house shall in all such cases be required to constitute a quorum therein.

I wonder, if the bill could be reformulated as a non-fiscal bill. For example, it seems that making state employees pay part of their salary for health insurance or a right to work law would fall outside the quorum requirements since it would not be a fiscal charge on the sate.

There is a fundamental difference between a private sector union and a public sector union, which you think so-called progressives like franglo would notice.

The private sector union is (in intent at least) an effort by the great mass of the people to extract a greater share of the fruit of the labors of the mass of the people from the smaller, privileged class of owners.

The public sector union is, on the other hand, the effort of a smaller, privileged class to extract for themselves a greater share of the fruits of the labors of the mass of the people.

Progressive support for public-sector unions is intellectually an inability to think past the infantile surface association "Union = Good", and politically a betrayal of the working class for the sake of power.

If you feel so strongly about it, Professor, why don't you and your Law School colleagues take a voluntary 50% pay cut? That would be putting your money where your blog posts are.

Julius, dude, sir. I think your obvious resentment is misplaced. Althouse is a University employee but her circumstances are entirely different than the teachers union's. If you want that kind of Schadenfreude then keep your eyes on Law School enrollments or the funding of law scholarships or something like that.

I see that the Dane County YMCA is offering free day care to help out parents whose kids are affected by the school closures and can't take off themselves. There are 500 slots altogether at the three locations, and the service is being offered to YMCA members and non-members. Don't know if folks should call to reserve a spot. I saw this info in a piece on WKOW's website. I thought I would post it here in case anyone reading is having a tough time finding options for their younger kids.

Sloanasaurus made an interesting suggestion: "I wonder if the bill could be reformulated as a non-fiscal bill."

How about scheduling a vote in the State Senate on a bill that would turn Wisconsin into a right-to-work state? Schedule it immediately before Walker's "budget reform" bill and pass it by a simple quorum regardless of whether the Democratic senators return to the capitol.

Maybe including the clauses about allowing state and local workers, including teachers, to vote each year (by secret ballot) on whether they want to remain union members.

Progressive support for public-sector unions is intellectually an inability to think past the infantile surface association "Union = Good"

To paraphrase, many leftists are stuck on simple.

Not as good as the original saying, but I don't want to label them stupid. I know too many who lean left that are not stupid; they just don't bother to think past the feel-good platitudes of leftist ideology.

The baby huey kid got thrown out of one group to join another, Randy Travis guy started to cry like he was the Speaker of the House, and a 15year old sat on Steven Tylers lab and gave him wood so she was the only one in her group to go through.

There's a great comment over at Politico from some kid (probably 40) who posts that he has two masters degrees, works as a TA and makes $13k a year. Why isn't he a teacher ???

There are some really stupid comments but I do worry that some idiot is going to start shooting.

Speaking of idiots:

I haven't gotten an explanation for how Republicans justify trying to eliminate collective bargaining, one of the keystones of workers' rights (that thousands fought and died for).

We're broke !!!!!!!!!

What part of that don't you understand ???

This behavior will kill unions for public employees. Teachers calling in sick and bussing kids to the rally to protest something they know nothing about. Great !

I was a union member when I was 16. I actually went to a strike vote and boy was that an education! The young guys with no family wanted to strike to "show the employer" who was boss. The older and more experienced guys with families didn't want a strike. Guess who won ?

The UAW killed the auto industry and the teachers are next. What do you want to bet that vouchers will be on the agenda later this year ?

The Lefties keep telling us this is a spontaneous, popular uprising, just like Egypt. I don't recall too many mass-produced, pre-printed signs during the demonstrations there.

franglo said...

However, allowing corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts of money in electoral campaigns is... free speech? Is that right?

Yes, that includes Lefty corporations like GE and Microshaft and all of Mr Soros' evil minions; just the way The Zero ran his campaign in '08. You remember, after making all that noise about campaign financing?

This is why I'm on the left. The left freaks out about going to war.

No, the Left freaks out about war against America's enemies. It never objected to Uncle Joe overrunning western Poland in '39 or Finland in '40 or Red China attacking Inja in '61 or North Vietnam trying to invade Thailand in '79 or the Sandanazis making war on Honduras in the '80s.

The right freaks out about health care for the poor.

No, the Right freaks out about freedom of choice taken away from people. It freaks out about old people or the infirm, or, yes, poor people being subjected to death panels because their lives aren't "useful enough".

The left defends teachers and firemen.

No, it defends public sector unions that degrade service and votes Democrat exclusively in exchange for patronage and favors; that only teach a curriculum calculated to turn people into credulous sheep who will elect a loser like Barack Hussein Obama.

This is why I'm on the left. The left freaks out about going to war. The right freaks out about health care for the poor. The left defends teachers and firemen. The right defends CEOs and wall street. Simplistic, yet basically true.

Franglo says that collective bargaining and free speech are functional and constitutional equivalents.

How do people who can think no better than this hold down a job? (Unless they are teachers.)

I mean, I understand how you could be a truck driver or waiter or something, but not hold down any job requiring abstract, critical thinking. My 12 year-old would distinguish collective bargaining from the constitutional authority to speak publicly without fear of censure.

The Wisconsin Fiscal Bureau states that the state will end the year with a balance of $121.4 million.

"Our analysis indicates that for the three-year period, aggregate, general fund tax collectionswill be $202.8 million lower than those reflected in the November/December reports. More thanhalf of the lower estimate ($117.2 million) is due to the impact of Special Session Senate Bill 2(health savings accounts), Assembly Bill 3 (tax deductions/credits for relocated businesses), andAssembly Bill 7 (tax exclusion for new employees)."

So whatever budget deficit Walker claims exists, [137 million] "more than half" is due to three "special session" initiatives [149 million] of his own making. 25 million was sent to a fund that already had 73 million in it, unspent.

And, as far as CEOs, The Zero is doing a pretty good job of defending Jeffrey Immelt these days.

Thank you. I don't get this leftist claptrap that Democrats are not a party that looks out for the interests of the of very wealthy. Wall Street bankers are doing very well under Obama. Too big to fail? More like "too politically connected to the Democratic Party" to fail.

The teachers remind me of hoarders whose garbage houses eventually demand intervention, but when you start to throw out a single used baggie, they freak out, unable to discard even one thing, saying they will just die if you do.

That's a very interesting comment. I've only heard that claim twice-- once now, and once a few days ago. Put one and one together and you end up with a hyper-anal Congressman whose campaign staff effectively stalks anyone who might report what seems to be corruption in his office. And it seems that you, chickelit, are right smack-dab in the middle of that (albeit discreet) corruption. Are you proud of being a master of pay-for-access?

I don't get this leftist claptrap that Democrats are not a party that looks out for the interests of the of very wealthy.

I'd like to see the Republicans propose a wealth tax for people with net assets over a billion dollars. It would be highly amusing to watch the Kennedys and Kerrys try to explain why couples who work and make over $250k should pay more taxes on income but the super-rich shouldn't pay anything on their accumulated (by previous generations, mostly) wealth.

In New York, the unions have a large, inflatable rat (15-20 feet tall) that they bring along to their hissy fits, usually a job site where private non-union employees are on the job.

In the state I'm in, the teacher's union delivered plastic rats, about 12 inches high to board members during a previous contract dispute. The damn things were ugly - large fangs, huge nipples, long tail - the works.

Actually, I think it was Dead Julius who once made the claim (several months ago now) of having riden the coaster to and from O'side. I tend to notice that sort of comment because...I actually live there!

Are Wisconsin legislatures required to enact legislation in Madison? In the Statehouse? Are they required to pass bills in State. If not, I would suggest the 19 republicans get in a bus, track down 1 democrat,surround him , declare a quorum and pass the bill. Why is only one side always allowed circus rules?

I haven't gotten an explanation for how Republicans justify trying to eliminate collective bargaining, one of the keystones of workers' rights (that thousands fought and died for).

Justification? That's asking a lot from Beck-bots and teabuggers. First they generally don't know squat about US History, including the labor acts of 20s and 30s. Also, their preachers probably told them unions were evil (LAMANITE! in the case of the LDS gang), that all public employees were reds, that FDR was ...a devil worshipper, that America started with like Reagan, that God created the world in 3000 BC, etc. Yeah. Sh*t like that --or they just got their PM tweek buzz on.

You, too? In a just world, Mattel would get some sort of an education award for those things.

When my oldest brother went to kindergarten, the teachers wanted him to know his letters and recognize his name before he got there. My mom made sure he did.

Six years later, my next brother went to school, and mom said, "And he already knows his letters and can recognize his name." And the teacher tut-tutted. In the six years intervening, some Authority had decided that the kids could only properly learn this in school, and parents who taught their kids would only mess it up.

So six years later, my mom was very concerned. Thanks to Speak & Spell and comic books, I was already reading the newspaper and every book I could get my hands on. She was sure the teacher would tut-tut again.

Fortunately for her, the research (or more likely, the fad) had turned again, and the teacher was delighted to have a reader in the class.

No doubt many people learn to read from teachers; but no doubt many learn from their parents and families. I'd like to see research on how that really breaks down.

First they generally don't know squat about US History, including the labor acts of 20s and 30s.

Since you know your history so well you know federal civil service employees weren't allowed to unionize until the '60s, and they didn't suffer from not having representation.

Government workers should not be allowed to form unions, and they should not be allowed to strike. There's nothing more comical than seeing lefties try to compare these pampered bureaucrats with 1930s coal miners.

I've grown tired of signs and bumper stickers that say, "If you can read this, thank a teacher." I was reading before I started school. I taught all three of my children to read. My wife has taught our grandchildren to read.

I realize that some are not as fortunate as I have been, but I can write and read this because of my parents. Just wanted them to know.

What support unions have among the public stems from the whole "underdogs vs. rich businessmen" narrative and J and garage are still feebly trying to peddle. Nobody buys that narrative when it comes to government workers, because government workers are paid by *taxpayers* and everybody knows it.

"We're 'poor' and he's 'rich', he should pay us more" is a sentiment most Americans can identify with.

"We've got better benefits than you, higher pay than you, and more job security than you, but YOU should sacrifice for our benefit"... that's NOT a sentiment most Americans can identify with. :)

"This is why I'm on the left.The left freaks out about going to war. The right freaks out about health care for the poor. The left defends teachers and firemen. The right defends CEOs and wall street. Simplistic, yet basically true."

Utterly simplistic. Too many people already pointed this out and I doubt that the person who wrote it stayed around to find out how "the right" would respond to this bit of received wisdom... however...

I, at least, (and apparently no one else either), plan to be *emotional* about the accusation because the real world is not simplistic and this is not *news* to people who are on the "right" or "right/libertarian/conservative" because they've thought past the "simplistic".

The left "freaked out" about the war when they discovered that it wasn't cheap, painless and brief.

The right "freaked out" about health care for the poor when it was clear personal liberty would suffer and that there was no real plan to pay the bills.

The left "defends" firemen and teachers because "public service" is a higher moral good than production and the world would be a better place if everyone gave up greedy pursuits to take service jobs with the state.

The right "defends" CEO's, Wall Street, and Joe the Plumber, because without production we've got nothing at all.

Without the schoolteacher unions the school teachers will still have jobs and get paid.

Without the "robber baron capitalists" who will pay the school teachers?

If we had to have one of them rather than both, if we had to *chose*, clearly it would be far more important to have the productive capitalists so that it's even possible to have a public service sector payroll.

"And uh lets see some of the Ayn Rand-teabag types and anti-unionist heroes diss the cop or firefighter unions"

Why?

Because cops and firefighters are "good guys" and therefore whatever they do is pure?

Teachers are "good guys" too.

Anyone in these professions begins with a wealth of good-will among the public. That it's possible to squander all of that good-will is truly an amazing thing.

If Rand had anything against labor unions, I don't think that libertarians oppose the concept of collective bargaining. Rand did, however, and certainly libertarians and Objectivists agree wholeheartedly, oppose stealing from workers what they've earned through their labor in order to give it to someone else.

Unions do provide services to members other than trying to shake down taxpayers. And if members find those services useful they will vote for and voluntarily pay their dues!

Any real progressive, properly grounded in the great socialist writers, could easily identify these state public employees as a group of petit-bourgeois protected by special privileges in law, parasitically living off the labor of the actual, productive, working man. He would accordingly class a public employee union as a reactionary cabal designed to subvert the state to serve a narrow privileged class instead of the public interest. The public employees would be deftly analogized to the lesser nobility, clergy, patricianate, and tax collectors of the Middle Ages, at whose hand most of the oppression of the peasantry actually came.

But J? He's got his progressive ideology fourth-hand, and in him the social-democratic effort to tame capitalism with the instruments of the state has degenerated into primitive reactionary worship of the state. By fixating on capitalism as the enemy instead of the good of the people as his goal, he's managed to get around to exactly the wrong side of history. He's actually less progressive than a full-blown laissez-faire capitalist, trying to drag society back to the pre-capitalist Dark Ages!

The trouble with collective bargaining rights for public sector unions is that public employees are government servants.

From "The Trouble with Public Sector Unions", in National Journal, by Daniel Disalvo http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-trouble-with-public-sector-unions

" In 1943, a New York Supreme Court judge held:

To tolerate or recognize any combination of civil service employees of the government as a labor organization or union is not only incompatible with the spirit of democracy, but inconsistent with every principle upon which our government is founded. Nothing is more dangerous to public welfare than to admit that hired servants of the State can dictate to the government the hours, the wages and conditions under which they will carry on essential services vital to the welfare, safety, and security of the citizen. To admit as true that government employees have power to halt or check the functions of government unless their demands are satisfied, is to transfer to them all legislative, executive and judicial power. Nothing would be more ridiculous."

and

" Prior to the 1950s, as labor lawyer Ida Klaus remarked in 1965, "the subject of labor relations in public employment could not have meant less to more people, both in and out of government." To the extent that people thought about it, most politicians, labor leaders, economists, and judges opposed collective bargaining in the public sector. Even President Franklin Roosevelt, a friend of private-sector unionism, drew a line when it came to government workers: "Meticulous attention," the president insisted in 1937, "should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government....The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service." The reason? F.D.R. believed that "[a] strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable."

...Now, the Disalvo piece doesn't have a footnote for what judge or what case that NY supreme court judge is, but perhaps some enterprising reader with access to online case law can find it.

As a native Wisconsinite, I wonder why don’t we put the missing 14 state senators on milk cartons and run off a million cartons just to commemorate the silliness? The GOP is missing a priceless opportunity to advertise for the dairy industry and humiliate their opponents in one swell foop…!

Best vignette so far. Kid being interviewed on national TV in front of statehouse and behind him a large green and gold signposter proceeds across the viewers’ gaze: “It’s all Favre’s fault.”